ROAD SIGNS REMIND US OF GOOD’S TRIUMPH AT LAST OVER EVIL

The new cool definition refers to the main points of interest from a speech or an event. What you should take with you and not forget.

My top takeaways from the week:

1. It’s taken three long years, but Chelsea and Amber, sisters in a terrible fate, are now a part of the inland North County roadscape, a fleeting reminder of good’s ultimate triumph over evil.

The unveiling ceremony of highway signs honoring Chelsea King and Amber Dubois offered the same sort of consolation to the girls’ families that the dedication of the Cara Knott Memorial Bridge did 17 years ago, 10 years after Cara was stopped and killed by a CHP officer.

Inland North County’s roads have become a kind of museum of innocent life lost and symbolically reborn.

Credit for the signs (Amber’s is on state Route 78 near the San Diego Zoo Safari Park; Chelsea’s is on the Interstate 15 bridge over Lake Hodges) goes to Karl Higgins, a Vista developer and former top aide to Congressman Bill Lowery.

A religious fellow (and marathon runner) with political know-how, Higgins found the sweet spot between brokenhearted grief and hardheaded politics.

In a recent email to me, Higgins shared his thoughts on the unveiling ceremony:

“Here is why we fight for redemption and public memorials like highway signs.

“San Diego was sucker-punched in the gut by John Gardner when he viciously murdered Amber, then Chelsea. The highway signs are a daily public reminder that good will always triumph over evil. Always!

“The highway signs, and the act of creating them, are therapeutic. They remind all of us who see the signs daily that protection of our children is a daily effort.”

2. Yes, we must protect children, but from softballs?

The death of Taylor Dorman on his 16th birthday, cruel irony, has created a sense of bewildered sorrow in Ramona High School and beyond.

The district has suspended the playing of Over-The-Line in P.E. classes, but that decision is no doubt driven by tact more than reasonable safety concern.

Is it possible, given random events like these, to keep kids absolutely safe?

Some terrible confluence of factors contributed to poor Taylor’s heart failure. A softball evidently hit him in just the wrong spot in his chest at just the wrong time.

Soon enough, we’ll be experts in heart irregularities and what, if any, immediate first-aid measures might have saved Taylor’s life.

We want to fix things so they never happen again. But, of course, they do, somewhere.

The early takeaway from this emotionally wrenching accident is that no matter how safe all sorts of familiar play may seem, there’s always a statistical chance that injury, even death, can occur.

This is why parents with working imaginations never sleep deeply.

3. What’s a Latino? Good question, but in Escondido, the die is cast.

Though they’re unlikely to derail a settlement that requires Escondido to elect council members by district, objections raised by three Escondidans will make a judge’s April 19 ruling on the deal more intellectually interesting.